English and Hindi poetry and prose, published as well as experimental. Book reviews, essays, translations, my views about the world and world literature, religion, politics economics and India. Formerly titled "random thoughts of a chaotic being" (2004-2013).

Sunday, February 14, 2016

Valentine's Day Proposal, 14th February 2013 (by a Romantic Academic)

Darling, on this Valentine's day,
all night and day, I worked on a proposal.
Each word chosen carefully, promise
after promise, crafted with more heart
than Rodin put into his sculptured art.
I worked on a proposal, brought forth
from the deepest recesses in my memory
ideas, idioms, examples that were apt, stark
and phrase after phrase, page after page,
I sung like a lark. Darling, let me sleep now,
if they fund my proposal, I will be at your disposal
the next Valentine's day.

--
(In honor of the academic owl
who works through the night
without fail, without a scowl).

**
(Imagined first as a poem from my colleague and friend Randy Ewoldt.He was finalizing his research proposal in a conference hotel, and kept working on it through the night).
14th Feb 2013

Vivek is a published poet. He reads & writes in Hindi and English. His poetry and essays in English are published in Poetry, Atlanta Review, The Cortland Review, Kartika
Review, Bateau, Muse India, Reading Hour, etc. He contributes columns and verses to Divya
Himachal (Hindi newspaper in India). Vivek's first collection, "Saga of a Crumpled Piece of
Paper" (63 poems, English, Writers
Workshop, Calcutta) was published in 2009.

Vivek spend his childhood in Himachal Pradesh and undergraduate years in IIT Delhi. He pursued a doctoral degree at Georgia
Tech, Atlanta (2003-2008) and he was a postdoctoral research associate in
Mechanical Engineering at Massachusetts Institute of Technology,
Cambridge (MA) (2008-2012). He currently resides in Chicago.